Destiny
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. Jate reset fic. Set after The Incident.
1. Chapter 1

I've heard a few people say they're disappointed by the lack of post-Incident Jate fics so I decided to start this now, while people are still are still excited about the finale, and just enjoy writing my other fics rather than race to the end. I wanted to do something original so I've incorporated some of the plans I had for an AU set in Sydney, along with the idea of "course correction" from the show: basically, if the Swan hatch was never finished and therefore unable to cause the crash, "fate" would have to find a different way to stop the survivors from ending up back in L.A. before the island could reach them (Plus I had to find a way to deal with the annoying fugitive issue)... ;)

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Chapter 1.

September 22, 2004.

KATE

_"Attention all passengers. Due to inclement weather, all flights out of Sydney have been delayed. I repeat, all flights out of Sydney have been delayed."_

"You've gotta be kidding me," Edward Mars muttered under his breath.

Kate forced herself to sit up a little straighter. "What's going on?" she asked, glancing from him to the airport official in charge of babysitting them.

The marshal fixed her with a harsh glare as if to say, 'Don't get too excited – I'm sure it's nothing'. "Looks like you just got a reprieve." He got up from his seat on the other side of the table. "I'm gonna see what the hold up is. Do not let her out of your sight," he warned the official.

She caught a brief glimpse of the world outside as the other man unlocked the door for him and then he was gone.

Now that they were alone, she shifted her attention back to the official, sizing him up without letting on that that was what she was doing. He was an older man – in his late fifties or early sixties, she guessed – with short grey hair and a serious, but not unkind, face. He reminded her a little of her father: her _real_ one, not the sick bastard she'd blown back to hell where he belonged.

"What did she mean, 'inclement weather'?" she asked him, wondering how much longer they were going to leave her sitting there in that hard metal chair. She was bored and restless and her legs were beginning to cramp.

His stern expression softened. "There's no need to worry, love," he assured her. "It's probably just a thunderstorm. I'm sure you'll be on your way in no time."

She averted her gaze to her hands, rubbing the raw skin of her wrist to relieve some of the chaffing from the cuffs; he cleared his throat when he realised how little comfort this was likely to bring her. "Is there anything we can get you?" She could see that he was uncomfortable: too much a part of the old world to approve of chaining up a woman who had been nothing but co-operative… except for that one incident. "You must be hungry," he prompted her with a sympathetic smile.

In truth, she was starving. All the marshal had brought her by way of food was a sandwich from the vending machine that tasted like it was at least a week old. She was sure that he'd done it on purpose, just to see if she would eat it. "I'm okay," she lied. He would be back any minute and then this small window of opportunity would be gone; it was now or never. "But there _is_ something you can do for me."

The official nodded to show that he was listening.

"It's been hours since anyone let me use the restroom," she explained, staring back down at her hands, doing her best to appear bashful.

"Of course," he agreed. He put his palm on her shoulder to steady her as she struggled to her feet without the use of her hands.

"Come on." He unclipped a key ring from his belt when they reached the door, keeping a firm grip on her bicep as he ushered her out into the crowded terminal.

Ahead of them, she could see the marshal arguing with a woman at the check in desk. "This way," he told her, steering her into a narrow corridor.

She hung her head, pretending to be absorbed in inspecting her sandals when a woman pushing a stroller from the other direction eyed her with a look of mild disgust. It made her feel sick to her stomach to think that, in her eyes, she was some kind of dangerous criminal – or terrorist – that she needed to protect her child from.

The official dropped her arm outside the door to the women's bathroom. "Here we are." He cast a furtive glance around them to make sure no one was watching, hesitating for a moment before removing her cuffs, slipping them into his pocket. "Five minutes," he warned her, "but if you're not out by then, I'm coming in after you."

The last thing she wanted was to make him regret his act of kindness, but she didn't see that she had much choice. "Thank you," she told him. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than anything she could have hoped for.

"Just be quick," he insisted, licking his lips as his eyes went in search of the marshal.

To her relief, the stalls were empty: the last thing she needed was some kind of Good Samaritan trying to impede her escape. She took mental inventory of each of the possible exists, her eyes falling on a small, rectangular window over the dryer. It was six feet off the ground with thick, frosted glass and no latch; if she could only figure out a way to break it…

"Everything okay in there?" the official called.

"Almost done," she managed to call back, scanning the room for something heavy to swing at the glass. By her count, she only had about three minutes left and it was going to take more than that to do any significant damage…

Her sense of panic increased when she heard the loud crackle of his walkie; afraid that their absence had been discovered, she pressed her ear to the door, listening. She could only make out a few words through the static: "…incident… bag… Iraqi… shops…"

"I'll be right there," the official assured the person on the other end. To her, he announced, "Five minutes are up."

Her heart leapt to her throat. She couldn't go back to that dingy little room… and an even dingier prison cell.

"On the count of three," he warned her when she didn't answer, positioning herself behind the door instead. "One… two… three…" He cracked it open. "Miss?"

As he poked his head inside to investigate, she pushed back with all of her might, slamming it into his temple. He slid to the ground, unconscious, the walkie falling from his hand; before anyone could see him, she dragged him the rest of the way inside, depositing him into one of the stalls.

"Sorry," she whispered as she lifted the gun from the holster on his belt, tucking it into the back of her pants, underneath her jacket.

Once she left the bathroom, she tried to blend in with the crowd, but the marshal – who has always had a sixth sense when it came to her – turned before she could get clear of his line of vision.

"Hey!" he cried when she broke into a run, ducking and weaving through the crowd; not fast enough to avoid colliding with a tall man in a suit who didn't seem to see her until it was too late.

"Whoa!" He caught her by the arms, hauling her back to her feet before she could hit the ground. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking her up and down.

Her was older than her, by about ten years, and very attractive; she couldn't think of a time when she'd seen him before, but there was something about the way his deep brown eyes searched hers that seemed so familiar.

He was American, she noted from his accent. Maybe they _had_ met before and she just didn't remember it. "Yeah," she agreed. "You?"

"Yeah." He held onto her for a few seconds longer than necessary before seeming to realise how inappropriate this was.

Whatever she was experiencing, it seemed to be affecting him too.

"There!" she heard the marshal shout, breaking the spell; a few hundred feet down the terminal, she spotted him pointing her out to a police officer.

"I'm sorry," she told the man, backing away with a sense of regret. A memory danced at the edge of her consciousness… Trees…? A jungle…? But it evaporated before she could make sense of it. "I… I have to go."

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So Kate has no memory of Jack... or does she?

Next chapter (which is already written if people want me to continue): Jack's POV... ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews. Obviously it's fun to play around with AU possibilities now, but if anyone's wondering, this isn't even close to being my theory about how season six will play out. I think Dan was right when he said "Whatever happened, happened" and everyone (even Jack) was just doing what they always did. There's something almost poetic about Juliet detonating the bomb since that's most likely the cause of all the future fertility problems on the island... ;)

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Chapter 2.

JACK

_"Attention all passengers. Due to inclement weather, all flights out of Sydney have been delayed. I repeat, all flights out of Sydney have been delayed."_

"Son of a bitch," Jack cursed, loud enough to startle the old woman sitting beside him. After everything he'd been through to ensure that his father's body ended up on that plane with him, he was going to miss the funeral.

He got up from his chair near the boarding gate and headed back towards the check in counter. "Exactly what kind of delay are we talking about here?" he insisted. The storm had crept up on them without warning; there wasn't a cloud in the sky when he left his hotel and now it looked like dusk outside even though it was still the middle of the afternoon.

"I'm sorry, sir, but if you just take a seat, we'll let you know when we have more information," the girl told him in a polite but firm tone that convinced him she wasn't going to be any more receptive to what he had to say than the last time he'd been there.

He ran his hand over his hair with a deep sigh. "Chrissy, right?" he checked, bracing himself for another argument.

"That's right."

"Do you remember me, Chrissy?"

"You're the gentleman with the coffin," she agreed, already looking wary.

"My father's coffin," he corrected her, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice, "which is now sitting on a plane that is effectively going nowhere." The funeral director had assured him that his father's body would remain in good condition during the eleven-hour flight, but he wasn't sure how well it would withstand being left in the cargo hold on the runway overnight.

"I'm gunna have to ask you to calm down, sir…" she cautioned him, losing some of her pleasantness as she began to get agitated herself.

"Not until I speak to someone who's in charge…" he demanded.

She returned a few minutes later with her supervisor, who as he expected, apologised several times before offering to make arrangements to have the coffin shipped back to the funeral home if the delay lasted more than a few hours.

It wasn't the resolution that he was hoping for, but as they'd made a point of reminding him, they couldn't take the plane up while there was a chance of it endangering the lives of everyone on board.

As he left the check in desk, a mean-looking man in a suit took his place; he could hear him ranting as he walked away but he didn't stop to listen to what he was saying. He probably just wanted the same thing they all did: to get back to his life… or what was left of it.

I need a drink, he decided, huffing out a resigned sigh as a deafening clap of thunder rattled the windows, plunging the terminal into darkness for a fraction of a second. There was no way he was going to make it through the rest of this day – or the next – sober…

He was so deep in his self-pity as he allowed his feet to carry him in the direction of the airport bar that he didn't notice the woman barrelling towards him until she slammed into his chest. "Whoa!" His fingers closed around her elbows to steady her. "Are you okay?" he asked, checking her over for any sign of injury, relieved that she seemed no worse for the experience.

"Yeah," she agreed, drawing in a shaky breath as she lifted her eyes to his. "You?"

She was stunning – maybe the most beautiful woman that he'd ever seen – despite her lack of adornments, her tangle of dark curls falling into her face, framing it like a curtain.

For one insane moment, he thought about reaching out and combing it back behind her ear; he could almost _feel_ the texture of it – like spun silk – under his fingers… He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

It wasn't until she snuck a wary glance at the place where his hand rested on her arm that he realised he hadn't gotten around to releasing her; there was something almost comforting about the warmth of her skin under his palm. Maybe it was just that it had been so long since he'd let himself get close to anyone – or because he could really do with a friend – but he couldn't remember ever feeling such a powerful attraction to a woman he'd just met. If they were going to be stuck inside the airport for the rest of the night, at least it would give him the chance to talk to her.

He was just about to ask her if she wanted to get a drink with him when something drew her attention away from him. "I'm sorry," she said, backing away from him. "I… I have to go."

He followed her gaze over the crowd to the irate man from the check in counter. "Do you know him?" he asked her, the words filling him with a strange sense of déjà vu as he watched him approach. Whoever he was, there was no love lost between them.

She shook her head. "No."

"He seems to know you," he told her, concerned when he noticed that she was trembling.

"He's been following me," she agreed. "I was trying to lose him."

It didn't take a genius to figure out that there was more to it than what she was willing to divulge. "We should report him," he insisted, his hand seeking hers.

He tried to lead her over to the nearest security guard but she dug her heels in, resisting. "No, please," she begged, her gaze darting towards the exit. "I just need to get out of here."

The desperation in her eyes – wild, like a caged animal – unnerved him. Just what was she was so afraid of? What was it that she was running from? "It's okay," he assured her with what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I can handle this."

"You didn't think you could get away that easily, did you?" the man sneered, slowing down once he was close enough to call out to them.

"Leave her alone," Jack warned him.

"Don't," she whispered, bracing her free hand against his chest and giving him an urgent shove when his whole body tensed, preparing for a fight. "You need to go – _now_."

The corners of the man's lips twisted into a smirk. "Who's your friend?" he taunted her.

"He has nothing to do with this," she retorted, yanking her hand free of his.

"Come with me now, and we'll forget this ever happened," the man agreed, reaching for her, but Jack pushed her behind him.

"I _said_, leave her alone," he growled.

"Oh yeah? And what're _you_ gonna do?" The man lunged forward again, making another grab for her wrist; on instinct, Jack swung at him, driving his fist into his face.

"What the hell did you do that for?" she shrieked, rounding on him, her eyes wide with shock as the blow sent the man reeling backwards, clutching his nose. Blood trickled from his chin, seeping into the carpet as he dropped to his knees. "I had it under control."

"I don't know," Jack confessed, finding her hand again. He wasn't sure what had come over him: it just seemed like the right thing to do – protecting her – though something told him that they should get out of there before he recovered.

"You have no idea what you're doing," he thought he heard the man hiss through his fingers as they began to run. "_She_ is dangerous…"

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Next chapter: Where will they go? And how long before Jack finds out who the marshal really is and what he wants with Kate? ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. I'm still working on the next update for _Brother's Keeper,_ so in the mean time you'll just have to make do with this. ;)

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Chapter 3.

"I think we lost him," Kate's saviour gasped as they hopped off the escalator, into baggage claim, slowing down to a brisk walk as they approached the sliding glass doors that opened onto the parking lot.

"Did you have to knock him out?" she hissed, throwing a furtive glance back over her shoulder to make sure they weren't being pursued. He'd assaulted a man – a _federal officer_ – in a public terminal, not to mention aiding the escape of a wanted fugitive. It was only a matter of time before someone called in the police and she resolved to be long gone by then.

"I thought that was what you wanted," he complained, sounding confused – and a little wounded – by her apparent lack of gratitude.

It wasn't that she wasn't grateful, it was just that after Tom, she'd vowed never to let anyone else pay the price for her actions. "What I _wanted_ was to get away from him without security coming after us," she told him, feeling a pang of mingled remorse and annoyance at the thought that he could be arrested for what he'd done. He should have stayed out of it like she told him to.

She didn't have time for this conversation: not when the police were probably already on their way; she started out into the storm, cutting across the parking lot, but to her surprise, he followed her.

"Why?" he insisted, squinting at her through falling into his eyes. Water soaked through his suit jacket, causing his shirt to stick to his skin. She could feel it trickling down her back. "Why didn't you just let security deal with it? They're there to protect you."

She knew she should keep walking but there was something about him that made him impossible for her to resist. Tears stung her eyes as she confessed, "Because… Because I can't go back to being his prisoner." It was as close to the truth as she would allow herself to get.

"Hey," he murmured, his hand coming to rest on her arm. There were layers of cotton and leather between them, but she swore she could feel his touch: calloused and rough, like a man's should be, and yet so delicate, as if he were afraid of breaking her. "I won't let him hurt you."

She wanted to believe him, after what he'd done for her, but she cursed herself for not running from him when she had the chance. Everyone else in her life had betrayed her: why would he be any different?

He turned to survey the airport before seeming to come to a decision. "We should get someplace safe, where we can dry off," he said, glancing up and down the street. "Looks like there's a bar at the end of the block…"

"No!" She hadn't meant to sound so desperate.

"Right," he agreed, seeming to understand without her having to explain. "The rain's still coming down pretty hard. Maybe we should just find a hotel for the night?" He reached up to scratch the back of his neck, his smile uncomfortable, and she felt her breath hitch: was this all just an act to get her to sleep with him?

Her fear must have shown on her face because he held his hands up in mock surrender. "I won't try anything – I promise." The look in his eyes was so earnest that she felt her resistance melting.

The marshal had confiscated all of her hard earned cash when he arrested her; without it, she had no choice but to throw herself in with this charitable stranger… at least until she could come up with a more sensible plan. "Okay," she agreed with a cautious nod.

She crawled into the cab he hailed for them, sinking against the backseat with relief as they left the airport behind. She really thought that was it this time, but here she was, free again.

She cast a nervous glance around them as he led her up to the front desk, but so far no one seemed to have recognised her.

"My name is Jack Shephard," he told the receptionist, leaning against the counter, and as she tried to remember where she'd heard it before, she realised that in all the chaos, they hadn't gotten around to introducing themselves. "I checked out this morning but my flight was delayed – can you see if my room is still available? 8F."

The receptionist entered something into her computer. "Unfortunately not," she told him after a moment, lifting her eyes from the screen back to his. "I'm afraid I can only offer you…" She punched a few more keys "…15B."

A flicker of emotion passed over his features, but it was gone before Kate could place it. "That's fine," he told the receptionist. He opened his wallet, sighing as he thumbed through a wad of green and white notes. "Do you take Visa?"

They didn't have any bags, so he thanked the bellboy and they showed themselves up.

"Wow," Kate said as he unlocked the door. "This is what you call a _room_?" It was less of a room and more of an apartment, with its own self-contained kitchen, bathroom and living area in addition to a bedroom.

"Not me," he corrected her, pushing back the curtains to let the last rays of the light in. "My father was staying here, right before he…" He stared out the glass, at the harbour, watching the sun set over the bridge with a wistful expression. "He had a massive heart attack. I'm supposed to be taking his body home to L.A."  
She wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but instead, all she said was, "I'm sorry."

He flashed her a tight smile as he turned back to her. "There's a robe in the bathroom if you wanna take a shower. I'll call the maid service to take care of your clothes."

She hadn't been able to do more than wash up in a sink since she left Ray Mullins' farm; after spending the night in a grimy holding cell, this sounded like heaven. "Thanks," she told him, hesitating for a moment before adding, "For everything."

She shrugged off her wet jacket and went into the bathroom. "Wait," he called after her as she was about the close the door. His smile was sheepish as he confessed, "I don't know your name."

The words rolled off her tongue before she could formulate a lie. "It's Kate," she told him. It felt good to finally be able to say it.

His face relaxed into a genuine grin. "Jack," he introduced himself.

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Jack sighed as he hung up the phone. He'd spent the last twenty minutes on hold, just to hear what he already knew: there were no flights in or out of Sydney until the weather cleared up. His father would be on his way back to the funeral home by now.

Just then he heard the click of a lock, and he glanced up to see Kate hovering in the door in front of him. Her dark curls were still damp from her shower, and she was wearing the fluffy white hotel robe, clutching her wet clothes in a ball against her chest.

"I thought you might be hungry so I ordered a pizza," he told her, pointing to the tray on the coffee table. As he watched her pursed her lips into an unhappy frown, he wondered if he should have checked with her first. "You do eat pizza…?" It had seemed like a safe bet. Who didn't like pizza?

"Why are you being so nice to me?" she insisted, putting the clothes down on a chair and perching on the arm of the sofa, neither accepting nor refusing his offer. "You don't even know me."

How could he explain the strange connection he felt to her when he didn't even understand it himself? It was like something was telling him not to let her out of his sight. That he _needed_ her just as much as she needed him. "You just looked like you could do with some help."

He could see that she wasn't convinced, but she picked up a slice of pizza and took a tentative bite, almost as if she suspected him of trying to drug her. One she was sure that it was safe, she polished it off in record time.

"Coffee?" he asked her, moving over to the kitchenette. He wasn't in the mood for food himself: what he needed was a stiff drink but he didn't think it was wise to get drunk with her there. He didn't want to embarrass himself, or worse, spook her into leaving.

She was still trying to swallow, so she nodded.

"Milk, two sugars, right?" he checked, surprising himself, as sure of her tastes as if he'd been making it for her every day for years.

She stopped eating then, staring at him in shock. "How did you know that?" she asked, half amazed, half fearful.

He just… did. He _did_ know her, even if he had no memory of meeting her before today. "Lucky guess," he told her with another weak shrug.

"So what do you do, Jack?" she asked, recovering her voice as he handed her a steaming mug.

He lowered himself onto the sofa beside her, nursing his own with both hands to absorb its warmth. "I'm a doctor – a spinal surgeon, actually. What?" he insisted when she uttered a small laugh.

She shook her with a smile head. "Nothing, it just suits you, that's all. Saving people…" She took a sip of her coffee, her eyes tracing the patterns that snaked out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt. "So what's with the tattoos?" she teased him. "Are you one of those really hardcore spinal surgeons?"

He chuckled at the thought. Should he tell her that today had been the exception? "Yeah. That's me. Hardcore," he agreed.

He was tired of talking about himself. He wanted to know more about her. "What about you? What do you do?" he asked her and her smile faded.

"This and that," she told him without bothering to elaborate, evasive as always. "Nothing as interesting as—"

"Who was that man, Kate?" he pressed as his smirking face flashed back into his mind. He'd seen it before. He was sure of it. He'd… treated him? "Why was he following you?"

She tensed like she had every time he asked her a question about herself. "You know what?" she said, setting her mug down so hard hot liquid sloshed over the sides. "This was a bad idea." She gathered up her clothes, backing away from him towards the bathroom to get dressed. "I'm sorry I bothered you."

"I wanna help you," he assured her, "but I can't unless you give me something to work with. Were you… were you involved with him?" For some inexplicable reason the idea filled him with bitterness, and it hit him that he was jealous. Even though he had no real claim on her, he didn't want anyone else to either.

She averted her eyes to the carpet, moving her head in what he decided to take as a reluctant nod.

"We don't have to talk about this now," he assured her, cowed by her distress. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off when she was just starting to trust him. "Storm's not gonna let up until at least tomorrow – you should get some rest while you can. I'll take the sofa."

"Jack? You meant what you said, right?" she asked, her voice soft and uncertain as she searched his face. "You've got my back no matter what?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "I've got your back."

She shuffled off to the bedroom without another word, but as the door closed behind her, he couldn't help the feeling that he was missing something: something important. Why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't her remember _her_?

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Next chapter: Kate has a nightmare, but was it really a dream? ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews. I have to say, I was extremely disappointed with the response to the latest chapter of _Deja Vu --_ clearly this is not a good time for fan fic_ --_ so this will probably be my last update until I get back from my trip (around mid August).

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Chapter 4.

Jack started awake when a bloodcurdling scream cut through the pleasant fog inside his brain.

It was coming from the bedroom, he realised, his heart beating an erratic rhythm inside his chest as he kicked back the comforter and scrambled off the sofa.

He paused outside the door, pushing his ear against the wood to listen, throwing it open without knocking when all he heard was silence. "Kate?" he called, searching for her in the darkness, his eyes darting over to the window, checking for signs of forced entry.

She was sitting up in bed, the sheets winding around her like a snake, her breath coming out in shallow gasps.

He took a cautious step into the room. "Kate, what happened?" he asked her, his fear replaced with concern once he'd assured himself that they weren't in any immediate danger.

"_Where's Aaron?" _a voice inside his mind added, catching him off guard. Who was Aaron? And what made him think of him now?

Her robe had fallen open in her sleep, revealing one pale, freckled shoulder; he swallowed hard, forcing himself to concentrate on her face, instead of what else lay hidden underneath.

She opened her mouth, babbling a string of incoherent syllables that he wasn't even sure were in English before she managed to answer, "They caught us."

"Who?" he pressed, wondering if it had something to do with the man at the airport and whatever trouble she was in. "Who caught us?"

She shook her head, catching the tears pooling on her top lip with her tongue. "I couldn't see their faces," she confessed, squeezing her eyes shut. "Their clothes were ripped and dirty and they didn't have any shoes…" She drew in a deep, shuddering breath as it all came back to her. "The… The Others."

There was something ominous about the way she said it, something sinister that sent a shiver along Jack's spine. "Other what?" he insisted, more confused than ever now. He recognised each of the words on their own, but together, they made no sense. "I'm trying to follow you, Kate, but I don't understand what you're saying." He perched on the edge of the mattress beside her, waiting for her to continue.

"We were in a valley – you, me and three men I've never met," she began, drawing her legs up to her chest once she'd recovered enough to explain. She circled her arms around her knees, curling into a tight ball as if to protect herself, though from what, he wasn't sure. There was nothing in the room but the two of them. "There was a noise… in the bushes… You yelled for us to run…" Here, her voice broke, her eyes welling up again. "We almost made it to the trees but something stabbed me in the neck… You came back for me – you carried me – but they caught you too," she sobbed. "They put bags over our heads and… and…"

He didn't think about what he was doing as he placed a gentle hand on her cheek, cupping her face in his palms. He just wanted to make her pain go away. "Hey," he murmured, urging her to look up at him. "You were having a nightmare but you're safe now. I told you – I won't let anyone hurt you." He would take down anyone else who tried.

"It felt so real, Jack," she told him, still trembling as he slid his hands down to her arms. "Almost… _familiar_… like I knew what they were gonna do before they did it."

"Maybe you've dreamt it before," he suggested, because it seemed like the most logical conclusion, but even as he said it, he knew that this theory was flawed.

"How could I?" she insisted, as if sensing his doubt. "It was _you_, Jack. You tried to pull me out of there. You risked your life to save me. How would I know to dream that?"

He thought about convincing her that she was only projecting what happened at the airport onto her dream, but something like that wouldn't account for him being able to tell her what kind of coffee she preferred just by looking at her. It didn't explain the déjà vu he experienced every time she said his name, every time those beautiful grey green eyes met his. He felt as though his mind had been invaded by someone else's memories, memories of a life that wasn't meant for him.

"That man – the one who was chasing you – his name wasn't Aaron, was it?" he asked her, desperate for a way to tie these two threads together. He'd always been too much of a pragmatist to buy into the idea of psychic connections, but the alternative was that he was losing his grip on his sanity…

He released the breath he was holding with a self-conscious chuckle when she shook her head, embarrassed at letting his imagination get carried away, even if it was only for a brief moment.

"What?" she complained, frowning at him as she tugged the shoulder of her robe back into place, covering herself.

"Never mind," he told her, relieved that she couldn't read his mind. "It's been a long day."

She seemed to have calmed since waking from her nightmare, her breathing evening out, becoming deeper, her posture becoming more relaxed.

He cleared his throat, awkward now that the crisis had passed and there was nothing to distract him from how little she was wearing. In the few minutes that he'd been sitting there he'd seen much more of her than he'd intended; he tried not to think about how it would feel to have her long legs wrapped around him as she shifted, tucking her feet beneath her.

"Well, goodnight," he said, pushing himself up off the mattress with a decisive motion, but she called after him before he could escape.

"Wait."

He should leave – go back to the sofa – but something kept him rooted to the spot. "Is there something else you need?" he checked, turning back to her in the dim half light.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked in a voice so meek that he couldn't have said no even if he'd wanted to. "Just until I fall asleep?"

"Sure." There couldn't be any harm in just keeping her company. He returned to his place on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to get settled under the blankets, but to his surprise, she remained seated, as though she had no intention of sleeping just yet. "Don't you wanna lie down or something?"

He could feel her watching him in the darkness, and for a moment, the only sound in the room was their breaths. "Kate," he insisted as her face inched towards his, her gaze flickering to his mouth. "We barely know each other." If he said it enough times, maybe he would start to believe it. Maybe he could talk himself out of wanting her.

"No," she agreed, "but I remember." She closed the distance between them, grazing his lips, so soft at first that he wasn't even sure they were touching. "I remember this – kissing you," she told him, and he smiled despite himself.

Somewhere deep inside he remembered it too; as he wove his hands through her thick curls, he was amazed and unnerved by the discovery that she tasted just how he'd imagined: like mangoes and salt water.

Like home.

That was what she reminded him of, he thought, his resolve weakening as she fumbled with his buttons, tearing off his shirt in a desperate movement that he was sure must be about more than just sex; she pulled out of the kiss with a smaller one, her eyes travelling down to his side as though searching for something.

"I remember a scar," she whispered, exploring the smooth skin beneath his ribs, the tips of her fingers raising goosebumps on his exposed flesh. She glanced up at him in confusion when she saw that there was nothing there. "Fifteen stitches," she added, tracing an invisible line across it with the tip of her fingernail, as if she could will it to appear. "Tell me this isn't another dream."

A phantom pain shot through his muscle, leaving a trail of fire behind.

"_Any colour preference?" _It was her voice that he heard this time.

"Standard black," he murmured in response, the words seeming to come from somewhere outside of himself, as though he were following a script. He looked to her for a clue that would help him figure out what this meant, but he could see that she was just as bewildered as he was.

"What's happening to us, Jack?" she whispered, tearing her eyes from his side. "Why do I remember something that doesn't exist?"

She was staring at him as though she expected an answer; for a moment, all he could do was shake his head, and then he let out a heavy sigh, combing his fingers through his cropped hair. "I don't know," he confessed.

* * *

Next chapter: Jack stumbles on a news report about a certain fugitive... ;)


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks for the reviews. As you can see, I'm back from my trip. I wasn't able to get in to see Darlton at Comic Con, but I did make it to Hawaii where Sassy and I spent most of the week seeking out Lost locations. Aside from the ones they take you to on the tours (the crash site, the beach camp, Sun's father's house, Eko's village, Hurley's golf course, The Tempest, Santa Rosa etc), we managed to find a bunch of others like the airport, the bank Kate robbed, the harbour where Desmond's picture was taken, Oxford, the bar where Sawyer met Christian, the cafe where Desmond met Libby, the alley where Rose met Bernard etc. We were actually staying on the canal where Sun and Jin met! ;)

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Chapter 5.

The storm hadn't let up by the time Jack woke the next morning. As he pushed himself onto his elbow to check the clock, he was surprised to feel the soft lump beside him stir in response.

Blinking until his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he saw that Kate was nestled in the space at his side; it took him a moment to realise that he must have fallen asleep with her still in his arms while he waited for the nightmare to leave her.

Sometime during the night, he'd managed to slip his hand inside the folds of her robe, his fingers splayed across her bare stomach, holding her to him in what he was sure was too intimate a position to find himself in with a woman that he _hadn't_ had sex with. And yet somehow it wasn't as awkward as he knew it should be. It felt almost… commonplace… like he'd been doing it every night for as long as he could remember.

It was something that he hadn't experienced since he and Sarah had started keeping opposite hours, but then they'd had years of history to connect them. Despite the tentative bond that they'd formed, Kate was still a virtual stranger. Aside from her name, he knew almost nothing about her, including why she was so desperate to get out of the airport.

He withdrew his arm an inch at a time, allowing her to adjust to his absence, afraid of the conclusions that she would jump to if she caught him touching her in her vulnerable state.

She moaned at the loss of contact, reaching for him as he disentangled himself from her and sat up, but to his relief, her eyes remained closed.

It was impossible to make sense of his thoughts when he could still feel the heat of her skin under his palm; he waited until he was sure that she wasn't going to wake up to slip out of the bedroom, easing the door shut behind him.

He switched the TV on and put on a pot of coffee, watching the rain beat down on the harbour through the door that opened out onto the balcony as he sipped it. Already, his encounter with Kate the night before was beginning to feel like a dream. There was no way that he could ever forget meeting her, much less _kissing_ her…

"What's happening to us, Jack? Why do I remember something that doesn't exist?"

…And yet he couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it was all real: Aaron, her dream the scar.

He just wished he understood how that was possible.

He tore his eyes from the glass, shifting them back to the blonde newsreader on the screen as the next story caught his attention.

"_Australians are urged to be on the look out for a twenty-seven year old woman who escaped US Federal custody at the Sydney International Airport yesterday afternoon…"_

The breath caught in his throat as he remembered the man's words after he'd punched him: _"You have no idea what you're doing. _She_ is dangerous..."_

He'd laughed them off at the time, convinced that he was desperate enough to say anything if it meant getting her back, but the question remained: if Kate had nothing to hide, then why did she run?

Any doubts he had left him as the newsreader continued.

"_Katherine Anne Austen, who is wanted for allegedly murdering plumbing company owner Wayne Janssen in 2001, was being transported back to the United States when she and an unidentified man overpowered a US Marshal. The pair then fled the scene…"_

Wanted? For murder?

His mind flashed back on her, just as he'd left her. She looked so angelic with her dark lashes pillowed on her cheek, the corners of her lips curling into a tiny smile as she sighed in her sleep. There had to be some kind of mistake: how could someone so beautiful, so… _perfect_… be a killer?

"Edward Mars was released from hospital this morning after being treated for minor injuries…"

Minor injuries? Like broken nose?

"_Austen is said to be approximately five foot five, with brown hair and green eyes..."_

As he stared at the grainy black and white mugshot that filled the screen, at the face that was so like Kate's and yet so unlike hers, with its harsh scowl, he remembered something else:

"I take better pictures than that. Smaller, too, if you want something for your wallet…"

He'd seen that picture before. Not just seen it, _studied_ it, asking himself the same question. He could almost smell the salt air.

And then it was gone.

"_Anyone with information regarding her current whereabouts, or those of the man police now believe to be her accomplice, should call the number…"_

He hit the power button on the remote, too heartsick to listen to the rest. Kate was a murderer, and now because he'd believed her, because he'd trusted her, he was her accomplice. No wonder she'd made him swear that he had her back no matter what. Was that all she was to him? A place to hide? And to think that moments before, he'd almost managed to convince himself that he was falling for her. He knew that he should turn her in – let the police deal with her – but at the same time he knew that he wouldn't.

Couldn't.

And not just because he would have to turn himself in too.

The sound of her voice behind him made him tense.

"Are those my clothes?" she asked when he forced himself to look at her, jerking her chin at a pile of folded clothing on the table by the door.

He swallowed hard, but he couldn't bring himself to give her more than a non-committal shrug, earning himself a questioning look from her as she moved to retrieve them.

"Is something wrong?" she checked, her brows knitting together in concern.

He shook his head, his jaw clenching with suppressed emotion. How could she even ask him that?

She stared at him wide-eyed, taken aback by his anger, before retreating moving into the bedroom.

"Who was that man at the airport, Kate?" he demanded, refusing to let it go without an answer. "I want the truth this time."

"What?" she stammered, trying and failing to cover her guilty expression. "Jack, I—"

Was she really going to insult his intelligence by acting innocent when they both knew that that wasn't the case? "I know who you are," he told her, cutting in to keep her from finishing the lie. "I saw the news."

He watched her shoulders slump in defeat, as good as an admission on her part.

"When were you gonna tell me?" he insisted when she made no effort to deny it. "When we both got arrested? You let me assault a federal officer!"

"I didn't _let_ you do anything!" she cried, rounding on him. "I never asked you to save me." That much at least was true.

He decided to try a different tactic. "Who's Wayne?"

He could tell by the way her back stiffened that he'd struck a nerve. "That is none of your business," she warned him, glaring at him, her green eyes glistening.

The sight of her tears filled him with remorse and he softened. "Please, Kate," he begged, wedging his foot in the door to keep her from slamming it in his face. "You say we have a connection, so let me in. Help me understand."

"You wanna know about Wayne?" she retorted. "Why I killed him?"

He answered her with a slight nod, hardly daring to breathe as she set her clothes down and re-entered the room.

"I'll show you," she agreed, reaching down to unknot her robe.

She turned away from him; before he could protest, she peeled the collar back from her shoulders, dropping it to her waist to expose the almost imperceptible scars that crisscrossed her spine. "He was my father…"

* * *

Hopefully this isn't too AU since the show has never properly addressed the issue of whether or not Wayne abused Kate as well.

Next chapter: Jack and Kate talk about what she did... ;)


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks for the reviews. I figured that it was about time I updated this fic as well. I would have posted it sooner, but it's a hard one to write given that Jack and Kate are having two very different kinds of relationship at the same time and I'm trying to find a balance between both. Meanwhile for those of you who've been wondering what happened to Deja Vu, I'm putting it on hiatus (indefinitely) due to interest being at all all time low, so if you would like to see it continued, you know what to do... ;)

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Chapter 6.

"When I was eight, he hit me with his belt for breaking a window," Kate explained after a moment, her hard tone wavering as she added, "It was summer, and my friend Tom had just gotten a pool, but I was too afraid to go in. I didn't want anybody to see."

She gathered the robe up to cover herself before turning back to face him, leaving it open just enough to give him a clear view of the round pink blemish that marred the skin just above her right breast. "And this? This is where he burnt me with his cigarette because I called him a pervert. He was touching my thigh."

Despite the casual way she tossed the words out, her eyes burned with hatred as she added, "He used to touch me all kinds of places."

Her story should have cautioned him against approaching her without at least announcing his intentions, but on instinct, he brushed the terry towelling aside, examining the wound that had long since healed. "Oh, Kate. I'm sorry," he whispered.

Something inside of her seemed to shut down then and she pulled away from him. "I'm the one who's sorry," she spat, remembering why she'd shown it to him in the first place. "Why did I ever think I could trust you?"

"No. Don't walk away from me. _No_."

As his fingers closed around her wrist, to stop her from storming out of his life, he was hit by another powerful vision, so vivid that he could smell the earthy scent of the leaves under his feet.

"_This place is… This place is crazy… it's just… I can't… it's driving me nuts."_

"What did you just say?" Kate asked, her anger giving way to surprise as she stared up at him, and he knew that she'd seen it too.

The only problem was that he'd never been in the jungle with her. And yet somehow, he couldn't convince himself that he'd imagined it. Any of it. He'd tasted her lips before last night…

"I said, stay," he repeated, softer this time, reluctant to let her out of his sight until he could figure out why being around her affected him the way that it did. He'd always prided himself on his rational mind, but nothing about his actions in the past twenty-four hours had been rational: at least not since meeting her. "Don't leave me. Please."

He couldn't tell if he made the first move, or if she did; he felt himself drawn towards her as if by a magnetic force, their lips meeting in a kiss that was equal parts tender and desperate.

She wrapped her legs around him when he lifted her up, one hand cupping the back of his skull to keep from breaking the kiss, the other pressing between his shoulder blades for support as he manoeuvred them through the open door, into the bedroom.

The sheets were still rumpled from where they'd slept the night before; setting her down on top of them, he loosened the knot of her robe, letting it fall away from her while he kissed her shoulders, the scar on her chest, all the way down to her stomach, resting his head there for a moment before moving back up to her mouth.

It wasn't so much a process of discovery as _re_-discovery: as though he was born with the knowledge of where to touch her, how to make her cry out, like a dance that he wasn't aware of learning the steps to.

And, as if she were reading his mind, she seemed to remember the choreography too.

"I just want you to know that this isn't what I had in mind when I invited you back here," he told her afterwards, his fingers combing her hair in idle strokes. It was strange, how natural it felt to be lying here with her like this. His experience with one night stands was limited, but he would have expected it to be awkward after the lack of foreplay. "I don't exactly make a habit of having sex with strangers."

_Especially fugitives._ He could be arrested for what he was doing. He probably would be.

"Me either," she assured him. "But that's the weird part. You don't feel like a stranger."

She rolled over to face him, surveying him with a serious look. "Do you believe in fate, Jack?"

"You mean do I believe that all this – my father dying, the flight getting cancelled – happened just so that we could meet?" he supplied. Fate, past lives, reincarnation… It was all crazy, right? "I'd say that's kind of a stretch, wouldn't you? The only reason we met is _because_ all those things happened." At least that was what he kept telling himself.

"You're right," she agreed with a self-conscious smile. "It's probably stupid, but I don't know how else to explain it."

He didn't either, so rather than try, he just kissed her again, slower and deeper, until he could almost accept what she was saying as true. "So what do we do now?" he asked her. "We can't hide out in this hotel room forever." He still had his father's funeral to deal with; there had to be some way for her to pass the border undetected…

To his way of thinking, they were in this together, but she seemed to have her own ideas. "_We_ don't do anything, Jack," she complained, holding the covers to her chest as she scrambled into an upright position. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I can't let you get involved any—"

She hadn't seen the news yet. "I'm already involved, Kate," he reminded her, sitting up alongside her. "As far as the police are concerned, I'm your accomplice."

She froze, staring at him in horror. "What? That's crazy!"

"Is it?" he pressed with a lopsided grin. It would be hard to blame anyone who walked in at that moment for assuming that they were a couple. "I mean, look at us."

Despite the gravity of the situation, he struggled to contain his laughter when her cheeks flamed, but her embarrassment was short-lived. "You have to tell them," she insisted, taking the sheet with her as she went back into the other room to retrieve her clothes. She dressed fast, yanking on her tank top without wasting time buttoning her jeans. "You have to tell them that I… that I tricked you into helping me. Then you can go back home to your family."

What was left of it. "It doesn't look like either of us is going anywhere until this weather clears up," he pointed out, changing the subject as he slipped out of bed and followed suit. The sky outside was still black as night, making the chances of getting a flight out of Sydney that morning slim to none. And until he did, _she_ was his family.

"I'm serious, Jack!" she cried. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"

"So am I," he assured her, ignoring this last part. "Whatever just happened between us… Whatever it means… All I know is that I can't walk away from you again."

"Wait, _again_?"

It came as as much a surprise to him as it did to her. "Did I just say that?" he asked, furrowing his brow in confusion as he replayed the last part of their conversation inside his head. Why would he say those words? Why _again_?

"Yeah, you did," she confirmed, looking as stunned as he felt.

"_If you have problems, you need to figure them out because I can't have you like this around my son."_

This time the flash sent him reeling backwards. "No, it can't be," he muttered. She was clutching a little boy, one that he had never seen before. Where was he now? Scars were one thing, but this? "We had a son."

"Aaron," she whispered, her eyes glistening, her face growing pale.

There it was again: that name. The same name that had been haunting him since she woke up from her nightmare. "Okay, what the hell is going on?"

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate talk about what they remember, and try to put the pieces together... ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks for the reviews. I finally figured out a way to solve the plot problems I was having, as you can see. Unfortunately it wasn't just the mythology that was giving me grief. Characterisation in this fic has also also extremely difficult since I'm essentially writing two versions of the characters as once... ;)

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Chapter 7.

"This is crazy!" Kate insisted. "How can I have a child when I've never even given birth?"

"I don't know, Kate," Jack agreed. "I'm just as confused by this as you are."

"That's not the kind of thing you just forget," she continued. "You don't just forget your whole life."

"I'm not sure that's what this is," he confessed, perching back on the edge of the bed. "I keep having these… _flashes_… of us, yet I can remember everything that's happened to me in the last thirty-seven years and you weren't a part of it. The more I think about, the more certain I am that you and I never even met until yesterday. We're talking about two sets of memories here. They can't both be real."

"You think someone planted these memories?" she supplied, fixing him with an incredulous look. "Why would they do that?"

That was just it. Why _would_ someone do that to them? And how? He sighed. "It's just a theory," he assured her. "I'm just trying to figure this out." As far-fetched as it seemed, it wasn't quite as far-fetched as past lives and reincarnation and some of the other more outrageous inferences circling his head.

"We don't have _time_ to figure this out," she protested, a note of hysteria creeping into her tone as she added, "Our son is missing!"

Their son. The idea was, quite frankly, absurd when they'd known each other a grand total of less than twenty-four hours. "We don't even know that he is our son," he reminded her gently. "We don't even know that he exists."

"We don't know that he doesn't," she argued stubbornly. "What if he's still out there somewhere? He could be hurt or scared or…?" She trailed off, sinking down beside him, her eyes pleading. "We have to find him, Jack. We have to find out what happened to him."

They'd managed to remember each other and Aaron: surely if he was dead, that would have come back to them too?

"Hey," he murmured when she began to cry in earnest. He pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder while she sobbed into his shirt, from fear or from loss, he wasn't sure. "It's okay. We're gonna get through this," he told her, even though he had no idea how. Where would they even start looking for a three-year-old boy who may or may not be a part of some bizarre joint hallucination? Chances were that if was real, he wasn't even Australia.

In a gesture of tenderness that was surprising even to himself, he allowed his lips to brush her temple, breathing in the sweet scent of hotel shampoo. "Why don't you go clean yourself up while I order us up some breakfast?" he suggested when she finally stilled. "Then we can talk about what we're gonna do."

"Okay," she agreed with a weak smile, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm. When she hesitated, he wondered if he should say something more, but before he could, she darted forward and placed an almost imperceptible kiss on his mouth, making his heart leap and skip a beat. "Thanks."

He watched her turn and disappear into the bathroom before going to pick up the phone. After spending a moment perusing the room service menu, he settled on a standard breakfast for both of them. That way she could choose what she wanted to eat.

She still hadn't emerged by the time he finished making the call; on a whim, he dragged the yellow pages towards him, flipping through until he reached the letter 'H'. He wasn't sure what prompted him to look it up, but underneath the heading 'Hypnotherapy' was a small ad that caught his attention. Deciding that it might be useful, he tore it out and folded it into a neat square, just as Kate rejoined him.

Her eyes were still a little red, but he could see her colour returning now that she'd had the chance to compose herself. He smiled at her and she smiled back, the illusion of intimacy gone, and just like that, they were strangers again.

In that instant, he began to regret having sex with her, even if it had been pretty amazing. He wasn't sure what had come over him. He cleared his throat. "Listen, I just wanna apologise for…" For what? Taking advantage of her?

A pink flush crept into her cheeks. "It's okay," she assured him. "Unless…" She tensed, her eyes darting to the fingers on his left hand. "You're not married, are you?"

The question caught him off guard. Surely that was something he should have thought to discuss with her before taking her to bed? But he hadn't. He'd just assumed that she already knew. "No," he admitted and she relaxed. "My wife left me."

"I'm sorry," she told him sincerely.

For the first time since it happened, he wasn't. He was trying to think of the best way to express this without overwhelming them both when they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

Since their confrontation that morning, he'd almost managed to forget that she was a fugitive, but he was reminded of it then when she turned and dashed back into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"Room service."

He went to answer it, accepting the tray from the bellhop and placing it over on the little table by the window before going to get Kate. "It's safe now," he called, tapping lightly on the wood. "You can come out."

When she did, it was with a sheepish grin. "I'm still a little jumpy, I guess," she explained.

If he was honest with himself, so was he. After all, what he was doing – aiding and abetting her, hiding her from the law – was illegal. He pushed the thought out of his head. "I wasn't sure what you wanted so I got us some of everything," he told her, leading her over to where their breakfast was waiting. "There's coffee, juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, toast…"

"It looks great," she agreed sliding into the chair opposite his.

He stirred his coffee and took a sip, watching thoughtfully as she spread butter onto a slice of toast. Not for the first time, he had the sense that they'd done this before, many, many times. With a jolt of recognition, he realised that the only thing missing from this scene was Aaron. How many mornings had he spent cutting up his eggs before he could get to his own?

As if sensing his thoughts, she glanced up at the empty chair between them, and he was sure that she must feel it too.

"I know the last thing you probably wanna do right now is go back out in public," he began, determined to get to the bottom of it, "but would you come with me to see someone? I think they might be able to explain why this is happening."

"Who?" she asked cautiously.

He took the advert out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her, waiting in silence while she looked it over.

"Recovered Memory Therapy," she read out loud, frowning as she lifted her eyes back to his. "I thought you said these memories aren't real?"

The more time he spent with her, the more it started to feel like it was _everything else_ that was unreal. "That's what I was hoping they'd be able to tell us."

"You really think they'll be able to help us?"

"I honestly don't know, Kate," he confessed. It was a long shot, but anything was worth a try. "But if it turns out that they can't, we'll just have to keep looking until we find someone who can."

"Okay," she said finally.

"Okay what?" he asked, wondering if she would make her more comfortable if they saw someone a little less unorthodox first, like a doctor or a shrink. He'd never put much stock in psychology, preferring conventional medicine to its more wishy washy approaches to healing, but then he'd never encountered a situation that science couldn't adequately explain before.

"Okay, I'll go with you," she agreed. She smiled. "Live together, die alone…"

The words stirred something inside him, although he couldn't place when or where he'd heard them before. "Who said that?" he asked her.

She blinked at him in surprise. "You did," she told him. "You're telling me you don't remember?"

It was good advice, though maybe a little dramatic for their current circumstances. "I wish I did," he admitted with a shrug.

She pushed the paper back towards him. "Do you think we need an appointment?"

While the news report had referred to him as her accomplice, he hadn't been mentioned by name. "I guess it couldn't hurt to call ahead," he agreed. At least then they would know if they were wasting their time.

He scooped up the receiver again and dialled the number.

A British woman answered on the first ring, almost as if she'd been expecting his call.

"What happened?" Kate asked when he hung up, having heard only his side of the conversation.

He was aware of how insane their story sounded; he was afraid of coming across as an escaped mental patient, or worse, a crank caller, so he'd decided not to give too much information over the phone. "She wants to see us right away," he told her.

* * *

It was still pouring an hour later when their cab pulled up to the curb of a dingy arcade a couple of blocks from the harbour.

"Are you sure this is it?" Kate asked, peering through the rain lashed window at the sign that hung above a door set into the space between an electronics store and a pawnshop.

The driver recited the address back to them.

"Looks like it," Jack agreed. He hadn't expected something so… depressing.

But the British woman was expecting them, so he paid the driver and they got out, the rain soaking through their clothes, chilling them to the bone.

When they reached the sidewalk, he noticed that Kate was shivering, even through her leather jacket; he peeled off his own wet coat and draped it around her shoulders and she rewarded him with a grateful smile. "I'll go first," he told her, pulling open the door and beginning the ascent up the narrow carpeted staircase.

There was a beaded door at the top; through it he could see an elderly woman with white hair and a stern expression that reminded him of the headmistress at his elementary school.

"Come in," she said, crossing her office to meet them, and Jack recognised her accent from their brief conversation on the phone. "You must be Jack."

She held her hand out to him and he shook it. "And this is my…" Friend? Was that what he and Kate were? Friends? Why then, had he allowed himself to sleep with her? But he hadn't known her long enough for them to be anything else. He gave up on searching for an appropriate label and finished simply, "This is Kate. I hope you don't mind that I brought her. She has some questions too."

Was it just him, or did the old woman look more pleased than surprised? "Not at all," she assured them with a warm smile. "The more the merrier." She gestured for them both to sit down before settling back into her own chair, her hands folded on the desk in front of her. "You can call me Eloise…"

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate learn about the island, but how will they react? ;)


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks for the reviews. So I finally finished this (painful) exposition chapter. Since I planned this story out during the hiatus, I'm changing one small but significant detail from season six: in my version of the alt world, only the swan hatch was destroyed. The island still exists. Oh and now that we have a clearer idea of what Jack's ultimate destiny might be, I will probably work in Flocke's show and tell from 6x03 since I already have a fun Jate-y theory about that. ;)

* * *

Chapter 8.

"Thank you both for coming," Eloise told them. "Why don't you take a seat?"

As he pulled the closest one out for Kate, it occurred to Jack that it was almost like she'd been expecting her too, but he shook the thought off by reminding himself that it wasn't uncommon to keep a spare on hand for situations such as this.

Once everyone was seated, Eloise got straight down to business without bothering to waste any more time on further preliminaries. "Now I understand you've been having some trouble remembering?"

For a moment, Jack wondered if she'd misunderstood what he'd told her over the phone. "It's not remembering that's the problem," he corrected her, exchanging puzzled frowns with Kate, who thankfully seemed willing to let him do the talking. Things would be much easier for them if they didn't. "It's _what_ we remember. Things that never happened."

Jack waited for her to ask them to elaborate on what these things were, but what she said instead caught him off guard. "I assure you, they did," she told him in the same reasonable tone, "even if you weren't aware of them until now."

Jack doubted that he could have been more stunned even if she'd reached across the desk and slapped him. "That's not possible," he insisted, turning to see that Kate looked as horrified as he felt; all of a sudden he had the overwhelming sense that he'd made a mistake in dragging her here. There was something not quite right about this woman. She didn't sound like any therapist that he'd ever met, New Age or otherwise. Wasn't part of their training learning to hear you out _before_ they decided whether or not it was all in your head?

He wasn't sure he wouldn't have preferred it she'd agreed that they were both certifiable. It was better than the alternative: that this might actually be happening.

"All things are possible for those who believe, Dr Shephard. Matthew 19:26," she added, almost as if she thought quoting the Bible would lend credence to whatever off the wall theory she was about to share with them. "What you're experiencing is a glimpse into another reality, one where you and Miss Austen were among the seventy-three survivors of a plane crash." She paused for emphasis, seeming to know how hard her next words would hit them. "Oceanic Flight 815 to be exact."

He hadn't said anything about their travel plans, or provided their last names, for that matter, though he supposed that she could have recognised Kate from the news. "Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded, his chair scraping across the floorboards as he leapt to his feet. In less than ten seconds, she'd gone from being mildly alarming to threatening. "Who are you? How did you know we were booked onto that flight?"

Eloise let out a soft amused chuckle, flashing surprisingly white teeth. "Who I am is not important. It's the two of you that we're here to discuss."

"Jack," Kate said quietly, touching his arm, the gesture calming him enough to convince him to return to his seat.

"So how about you stop talking in riddles and just tell us what you know?"

Eloise stood up from her desk. "Your plane should have taken off yesterday afternoon as planned, only it was never supposed to land in LA," she began, pacing the length of the grimy window behind her like a teacher in front of a blackboard. There was something vaguely familiar about her rigid posture and stern demeanour; she reminded Jack of someone, though he couldn't think of who. "Six hours into the flight, your pilot – Seth Norris – would have lost radio contact with the outside world. Another two hours after that, he would have lost control of the plane, allowing it to stray one thousand miles off course before finally crashing it onto an island in the middle of the Pacific."

"And yet somehow we survived?" Jack repeated, unable to hide his scepticism. So far none of their memories had hinted at anything as dramatic as a plane crash, although he supposed it could account for some of the more unusual details like the scar on his back and the fact that they were often surrounded by oceans and jungles.

"For three months," Eloise agreed, "until a freighter carrying a group of scientists – including my son, Daniel Faraday – arrives. You, Miss Austen and four others escape, to become known to the rest of the world as 'The Oceanic Six'. But you remain plagued with guilt over those you left behind, and when you return three years later, your actions lead to the creation of an alternate reality. _This_ reality."

It was all so far-fetched, like something out of a movie. It had to be part of some kind of con. "And you expect us to believe this?" Jack asked, struggling not to lose his temper. "Why?"

"Because it – the island – is your destiny," she said simply.

Jack put about as much stock in the idea of destiny as he did in fate. "I think we've heard enough," he told her. Something about this woman – this whole situation – creeped him out. Maybe it was just the feeling that he'd done this all before. "Come on, Kate." He picked up her hand, but she stopped him, refusing to leave until she got what she came for.

"Wait," she said, her voice rising in desperation. "What about our son? Aaron?" It was the one question that he knew she really needed answered. "Where is he now?"

"Aaron isn't your son, Kate," Eloise corrected her with a sympathetic smile. She turned to Jack, directing the next part at him. "He's your nephew."

Of all the implausible things that she'd tried to convince them of – alternate realities, miraculous survivals and grand destinies – this one seemed the _least_ plausible because it defied the basic rules of biology. You had to have a brother or sister before you could be an uncle, and he wasn't married. "Say you aren't completely delusional, and what you just told us is actually true," he allowed. "That still doesn't change the fact that I'm an only child."

Eloise arched a quizzical eyebrow at him, her watery blue eyes sparkling with mystery. "Are you?"

For a moment, he was tempted to ask her what she meant by this, but he doubted that she would be forthcoming with the answer. It was all part of the game, to trick them into staying and listening to whatever else she had to say. "Yes, I am," he told her decisively. At least in this reality.

He shifted his hand to Kate's bicep, urging her in the direction of the stairs, but even as they prepared to flee, he couldn't shake the feeling that the little boy whose smiling face he could still picture had to come from somewhere. In the new memories, he was as real to him as Kate.

His foot was on the top step when Eloise called after them, "Your son will play a part in the shaping of the island, just as you yourselves will."

Even though he knew what she was trying to do, this succeeded in getting Jack's attention, despite his better judgement, his head whipping back around to face her. "Our son? You just said we didn't have one," he reminded her.

"I said _Aaron_ isn't your son," she pointed out, which he realised then was the truth.

Still, there was no way that she could possibly know something like that when he still wasn't sure what he and Kate were to each other or how he felt about her. Once their plane finally touched down in LA, they would be forced to go their separate ways: him to his father's funeral and her to jail, he thought with a surprising pang of loss. She wasn't any more a part of his destiny than some nameless island that had improbably escaped human discovery for hundreds of years, according to Eloise.

"So you're a fortune teller too? That's just…" He shook his head, suppressing the urge to laugh. "That's just great." When he glanced over at Kate, he could see that she was still shell-shocked, trying to come to terms with Eloise's story; he didn't wait for her to engage, pressing the old woman for another explanation that she was unlikely to give, dragging her towards the exit, back to the blissfully ordinary world outside. "Thank you for your time. We'll show ourselves out…"

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate discuss their meeting with Ms Hawking and try to decide where to go from here... ;)

Just a quick question: if there was one memory that could convince them that she was telling the truth, what do you think it would be?


	9. Chapter 9

Thanks for the reviews and for your suggestions. I decided to use a couple to move the story along. ;)

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Chapter 9.

When Jack came back from calling the airline to check for news on their flight, Kate was curled up on the couch with her chin in her hand, staring listlessly at the glass doors. "I bet you were one of those kids who hated being cooped up inside," he teased her.

Rather than come back with a retort of her own she just acknowledged him with a weak smile, letting his attempt at friendly banter fall flat.

The view couldn't be what was keeping her so absorbed; all he could see was rain and fog, concealing the bridge and the harbour beyond. "Is everything okay?" he asked her, setting down the coffee cups that he'd brought back in with him. She wasn't the most communicative woman that he'd ever met, but it wasn't like her to be this distant either. "You've hardly said two words since we left that woman's office."

"I was just thinking about what she said," she confessed, drawing her legs in to make room for him.

Something about it was obviously upsetting her. "Hey," he murmured, reaching over to cup her cheek with his palm. He wished he'd never taken her there when all it had done was mess with both of their heads. "Don't worry about it, okay? The woman is obviously not playing with a full deck."

"I'm not talking about the plane crash," she corrected him, finally turning to him. "I'm talking about what happened this morning. What if she was right about one thing?" For a moment he thought she was going to bring up Aaron, until she rushed on, "What if I get pregnant?"

He wanted to assure her that that was just as unlikely as they being marooned on some mysterious island, but he knew it wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility. "You're not on the pill?" he asked her as delicately as he could, not wanting to sound like he was accusing her of something.

She shook her head, staring down at her lap to avoid meeting his eyes. "I could never risk asking for a prescription."

Of course she wouldn't be able to go to a doctor: she was on the run. How could he be stupid enough to just assume that she would be? "Oh God, Kate, I am so sorry," he told her, even though he still wasn't entirely clear on who had jumped who. It all happened so fast. Too fast. "I wasn't thinking."

"No, Jack, it's not your fault," she insisted. "I'm sure it's fine." She let out a nervous laugh as she added, "I mean, what are the chances?"

Not as small as he would like. It was better not to take the risk. "It doesn't look like they're going to reschedule our flight for at least another twenty-four hours, so we'll go to the drugstore first thing tomorrow morning and…" he trailed off, but the rest of the sentence lingered in the air between them.

It wasn't like he was proposing she have an abortion, he reminded himself. He was just being responsible, heading off a potential problem before there was an actual child involved and things got a lot more complicated for both of them. Still, something about it didn't sit right with him. Maybe it was because he'd almost gotten used to the idea of sharing a son with her, or maybe it was just the implication that he wasn't _meant_ to interfere.

As soon as the thought finished forming, he shook it off, resisting the urge to laugh at himself for buying into Eloise's insane fantasy. He wasn't about to start basing life-altering decisions around something a complete stranger had told them... at least until he had something more concrete in the way of proof.

"Thanks," Kate said softly, clearly as uncomfortable with the conversation as he was. "I don't know what I would have done with a baby. I'd be a terrible mother."

That wasn't entirely true, Jack decided. She didn't seem to have any problems handling Aaron in the few memories that he had of them together; then again, she didn't appear to be fugitive there either. If anything, he was the one who would be a terrible parent. He hadn't even bothered to ask who Aaron was, much less what had happened to him.

By then their coffee had begun to go cold; he moved to get up, to put on a fresh pot, but the sound of her voice stopped him.

"I know he isn't really my son, but I miss him – Aaron," she explained when he froze, wondering if she was about to tell him that she'd changed her mind.

"_You're not even related to him_," he said whispered along with the memory.

He didn't realise that she'd heard him until he caught her wounded look. "What?"

"That wasn't me," he assured her; off her frown he added, "Obviously it was me, but I don't know why I said it." The words were meant to hurt; he didn't like to think of himself as being that cruel.

"You weren't yourself," she agreed and he knew that she must be right: he saw his hand reaching for a beer.

"I think I was drinking," he confessed, ashamed of himself even though he wasn't sure it was really himself that he was remembering; he felt as if he didn't know this other Jack who would get drunk and lash out at the people who loved him. After what he'd been through with his own father, he was careful to limit his own drinking. He'd never imagined that he would have a problem with alcohol himself.

"_I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I'm not the same, the next question is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!"_

One of his earliest memories was lying tucked up in bed, listening to his father read to him from read _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, but that wasn't the one that he was evoking now. In the new memory, he was the one sitting in the chair at the little boy's bedside, reading those same words aloud to him while Kate watched, smiling, from the doorway; a sense of contentment, mingled with regret washed over him and he found himself wishing that he could go back to that moment. He still wasn't sure about a plane crash, but they certainly felt like the last survivors of _something_.

"For what it's worth, I miss him too," he confessed.

* * *

_The object in Jack's hands was heavy, but not as heavy as his heart, as he lowered it into the opening of the shaft._

"_Hurry up, Doc," a man's voice, edged with a thick Southern drawl, shouted from somewhere above him when he couldn't seem to bring himself to release it. "What're you waitin' for? Drop it!"_

_He glanced up into Kate's tear-streaked face for what he hoped wasn't the last time, to make sure that she still was still with him, supporting him in this one final thing, and she nodded, as if to say, 'Go ahead'._

_It was exactly what he needed from her — he wasn't sure that he could do it unless he knew that she was on board – but when he turned back to the shaft, he found that it wasn't as easy as he'd convinced everyone that it would be, because once it was done, there would be no going back. _

_Closing his eyes, he watched fragments of the three years play out like a movie inside his head, the best and worst days of his life, but through it all: Kate. She was the one thing that he wished he could take with him wherever he was going and he prayed that he would meet her again there. After how badly he'd screwed up the first time around, he was certain that it was the only way that they would ever truly be able to start over._

_With this thought in mind, he counted to five and forced himself to let go…_

He started awake so suddenly that he disturbed Kate, who was sleeping pressed against his side with her arm slung over his stomach.

"Jack?" she said, blinking groggily at him, and recalling the way he'd longed for her in his dream, believing that it was all over between them, he felt such an overwhelming rush of love and gratitude at finding his way back to her that he embraced her before she'd even finished sitting up.

"What's going on?" she asked him, slowly coming alert as he buried his face in her soft curls, hugging her tightly. She slid her own arms around him to brace herself, rubbing his lower back in a way that he figured was meant to be soothing.

"I remember now," he told her when she finally pushed him away so that she could study his face, his mind racing as he struggled to piece it all together. "I remember what happened…"

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Next chapter: Jack and Kate pay Ms Hawking another visit and encounter a familiar face (who just might inspire some jealousy)... ;)


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